Flirting with Disaster (21 page)

Gabrio had saved his life.

“Yeah,” Adam said. “I remember.”

“Gabrio told me some strange things,” Sera said. “Something about counterfeit drugs, and he said that it’s . . .” She paused for a moment, a disbelieving look on her face. “He said that it’s Robert who wants you dead?”

Adam nodded. He put his hand to his forehead. Jesus
Christ
, he had a headache. And every breath he took shot pain through his chest.

“Then it’s true? And he sabotaged Lisa’s plane?”

Lisa.
Robert had killed her. Adam felt a swell of sorrow mingling with cold, stark anger. She’d been such a good friend. And now she was gone.

“Yes,” Adam said, closing his eyes. “It was Robert. He killed Lisa.”

Sera slid her hand over his. Lisa had been almost as close as family to him, and he couldn’t believe she was gone.

“Gabrio told me not to go to the authorities, because they’re in on it, too,” Sera said. “Is that true?”

Adam nodded. “Yeah. It’s true.”

“I don’t believe this.”

He gazed at the equipment that surrounded him. “Where did all this come from?”

“I took it from the clinic. Everything I thought I’d need.”

“Robert will know things are missing,” Adam said.

“But he won’t know I took them.”

So Sera had stolen equipment from Robert’s clinic and used it to keep him alive.
How about that, Robert? Do you
like irony?

“Gabrio,” Adam said. “Where is he now?”

“He stayed here with you until I got back with the supplies, and then he left. He was so scared. I don’t know where he is now, but he told me that as soon as that gang he runs around with finds out that he let you live, they’ll kill him.” She paused. “Do you think that will actually happen?”

Adam thought about Ivan and Enrique, how they’d shown up at the clinic to carry out Robert’s orders without question. In their world, loyalty was everything. And the moment Gabrio showed any disloyalty, he would be their next target.

“Yes.”

“But Ivan—won’t he protect him?”

“Ivan’s the one Gabrio needs to be afraid of.”

“Surely not. His own brother?”

“His own brother.”

He could tell by the look on Sera’s face that the very idea of that was unfathomable. She’d always been one of those rare people who believed in the good side of humanity, no matter how much inhumanity she saw.

The dark circles under her eyes told him just how tired she must be, but still she looked so beautiful to him. She always had. The very first time he’d seen her, everything else in her midst had seemed to pale in comparison. Two years had passed since he’d first met her, and nothing had changed. He still had the feeling that he could fill entire days doing nothing but staring at her pretty face.

“I can slip you out of town,” she said. “Take you to Monterrey. No one will know.”

“Eventually they’ll find out,” Adam said, his head still pounding. “I have to find Gabrio. If he comes with us, he’ll be safe.”

“The only place you should be going is to a hospital. Besides, you can’t show yourself in town. If Robert finds out you’re alive, he’ll come after you again.”

“If anyone finds out I’m alive, that kid’s going to die. I’m not going to let that happen.”

“But you’ve been shot, Adam. You need treatment.”

“Where exactly is the entry wound?”

“Below your shoulder, above your heart, thank God.”

“Exit wound?”

“There isn’t one. The bullet is still in there. You’re at high risk for infection.”

“What about my head wound?”

“You have a deep laceration. You could have a concussion, or even a delayed hematoma. You know how dangerous that can be.”

“That’s unlikely. My speech is fine, isn’t it? And I’m moving all my extremities. How are my pupils?”

“Equal and reactive.”

“No neurological damage, then.”

“That’s hardly conclusive. God, Adam, if you could have seen the blood . . . from your head, your chest . . .”

“Do I seem disoriented?”

“No.” She paused, and he could tell she was searching for ammunition. “Not now. But you’ve been in and out for the past twenty-four hours. Any loss of consciousness is cause for concern.”

Why did she have to have a nursing degree? This would be so much easier if she were an ignorant layperson and he could just pat her on the hand and tell not to worry. But no matter how frightened she was, he wasn’t moving from this house until he could talk to Gabrio. He tried to take a deep breath, only to wince at the ache in his chest. If only his head would stop pounding . . .

“I can tell you’re in pain,” Sera said.

“It’s tolerable.”

“You need a CT scan. That’s the only way to know for sure the extent of your injury. And you were hypotensive because of the blood loss. Hypotensive patients with head injuries have twice the mortality rate as—”

“I told you I’m not going anywhere without Gabrio.”

“But you need to see a doctor!”

“I’ll stay in this room for the rest of my life before I let that kid die.”

“Stop it, Adam! Just stop it!”

Her voice was hushed, but the emotion behind her words exploded into the room. She took a deep, quivering breath. “I was so afraid to sleep. I woke up every hour and took your vital signs, gave you more fluids, and put God on overtime listening to my prayers. I didn’t know what the bullet had done, because you kept drifting in and out of consciousness. I was so afraid I’d wake up . . .” She paused, her voice tight with despair. “I was afraid I’d wake up and find you dead.”

As tears filled her eyes, the fear and concern he saw there went straight to his heart. He remembered waking to find her hand on his arm, as if she could keep him from slipping away from her as he slept if only she kept on touching him.

“When I heard that you’d been killed in that plane crash,” she went on, “I can’t tell you how I felt. For two days I mourned you, Adam. I cried until there wasn’t a tear left in me to shed, and I can’t do it again. I can’t. Please,
please
let me take you to a doctor.”

The idea of her sitting in this room, crying for his memory, made him wish he could take her in his arms and hold her until she forgot every bit of that. But no matter how much pain it caused her, caused both of them, Adam could not,
would
not, put Gabrio’s life at risk, even if it meant he was in danger himself.

“I know you don’t understand this, but it’s because you weren’t there. It was the most horrific thing you can imagine.” He took her hand. “Robert called Ivan and Enrique. They came to the clinic a few minutes later. Armed.”

Sera turned away. “Adam, please—”

“They tied my hands, drove me out to a secluded place. Made me get out of the car—”

“Please don’t tell me this!”

“Look at me, Sera.”

Slowly she turned back.

“They made me get out of the car. Shoved me to the edge of a hillside, ten paces away. Gabrio asked why. Ivan said, ‘Blood spatters.’ Then he shot me.”

Sera put her hand against her mouth, tears filling her eyes. “If Gabrio cared so much, why didn’t he stop them before they shot you?”

“Disloyalty is a capital offense. Gabrio couldn’t have saved me. Ivan and Enrique are animals. No conscience. But Gabrio . . . Even with all that in his life, still there’s something so good in that kid that when he was faced with a decision like that, he made the right one. He could have let Ivan put another bullet in me, but he didn’t, even though he knew the danger it put him in. How can I do anything less for him now?”

Sera sat there for a long time, a battle clearly raging inside her. Finally she looked up again, her voice hushed with resignation. “You can’t.”

She wiped her eyes with shaky fingertips, then rose from the bed. “You need to eat. I’m going to go fix you something. Then this afternoon I’ll go to Esmerelda’s as if I’m returning to work. Ivan is always there, and Gabrio’s usually with him. I’ll find a way to pull him aside and talk to him without his brother around.”

Adam felt a shot of apprehension. He hated that she had to work at Esmerelda’s just to make ends meet, since nobody in Santa Rios could pay her what her services as a midwife were worth. And he hated it even more when men like Ivan came through the door.

“For God’s sake, watch out for Ivan,” he told her. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. And now that I know just how ruthless he really is—”

“If you want me to talk to Gabrio, I have to make sure where Ivan is first. I don’t want him getting in the middle of things.”

Adam finally nodded. “Just be careful.”

She started to leave the room, then turned back. “What if Gabrio is so afraid of Ivan that he decided to run? What if I can’t find him?”

“If that’s what’s happened, we’ll deal with it. But try to find him. Please.”

She stared at him a long time. “I wish you were more selfish, Adam. I wish that just once you’d do what’s best for you and say to hell with the rest of the world. Because if only you would do that, then maybe . . .” She paused, her voice choking with emotion. “. . . maybe I wouldn’t love you so much.”

She slipped out the bedroom door and shut it behind her. Adam closed his eyes, remembering how he’d lain at the bottom of that hill last night, sure he was drawing his final breaths. To his surprise, it hadn’t been Ellen’s face that had filled his mind. It had been Sera’s. That had to mean something.

Hell, yes, it means something, you idiot. You’re in love with
her, too.

Until this moment, he hadn’t actually allowed his thoughts to go down that road. And now that they had, it scared the hell out of him, because just about any other man on the planet could give Sera more than he could ever hope to. And the moment she realized that, she’d be gone.

Dave woke to a cool breeze, and he turned to see the glass door leading to the balcony standing wide open. He rose quickly to close it, only to see his clothes and Lisa’s lying in heaps on the balcony. He slipped outside, grabbed them, then came back inside. He shut the door and locked it, drawing the drapes. Turning back, he saw Lisa lying in bed, awake and staring at him.

Suddenly everything that had happened last night came back to him in a blinding rush. After they’d come back upstairs, just being in the same room with her had brought up fresh waves of guilt he hadn’t wanted to face, and he’d been thoroughly convinced that she was the last woman on earth he should be making love to. Yet he had.

And he’d never felt anything like it before.

If he wanted to stretch his motivation to the breaking point, he might have been able to blame everything that had happened last night on two beers and one oversize shot of tequila, but he had nothing to blame it on now.

He approached the bed, already feeling himself getting hard again, knowing that as long as they were in this room together he wasn’t going to stop wanting her. He wasn’t even going to try.

He tossed their clothes at the foot of the bed, then stretched out beside her, leaning on one elbow. He slipped his hand beneath the covers and curled it around her rib cage, but just as he leaned in to kiss her she turned away, rolled over, and sat up on the edge of the bed.

“Wow,” she said, stretching a little. “Nothing like a little hot sex to really wear a girl out.” She turned around and flashed him a seductive smile. “That wasn’t bad, Dave. Not bad at all.”

Dave blinked with surprise, her flippant tone setting him on edge. She ran her fingers through her hair, then started to get up. He took hold of her wrist.

“What’s the hurry?”

She eased from his grasp. “It’s getting late, and we’ve got places to be.”

“It’s not all that late.”

“I told that guy we’d be there at ten-thirty. It’s nine now.” She stood up, grabbed her clothes off the end of the bed, then went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

Dave felt as if she’d slapped him.

Contrary to what his brothers thought, there had been women in the past four years. But sex had seemed mechanical and lifeless, little more than a biological act, as if his brain wouldn’t allow his body to truly engage. Last night had been different. His body had been engaged on every level, alive and screaming in every way.

But to Lisa it had clearly been no big deal. Something that had been incredible to him had been just one more roll in the hay to her. And the thought of that left him feeling . . .

Hell, he didn’t know how he felt about it. All he knew was that right now, as he pictured them flying back to San Antonio and eventually parting ways, he was struck by a sense of loss he hadn’t anticipated.

Great sex. That’s what you’re going to miss.

He had to keep reminding himself that he wasn’t dealing with reality right now. Not his reality, anyway. He had a life that centered around going to work, going home, taking care of his five-year-old daughter. For better or worse, his life had taken a narrow path that was pretty much cast in stone, and he took the responsibility of it seriously.